


Nothing but Ashes

by Silvereye



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-03 05:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvereye/pseuds/Silvereye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many things to be done after someone has died. Post-Reichenbach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing but Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for 2x03 "The Reichenbach Falls", of course. Major Character Death refers to the one in episode.
> 
> I noticed Sherlock's gravestone had no dates. It gave me a bad case of the feelings. Again.

There are many things to be done after someone has died. Too many. One might almost think they are conceived to keep the mourners busy. To keep them moving and breathing. From noticing all the empty spaces. 

It does not work that way.

John goes through the motions. He gets the papers confirming the death. Arranges the memorial service. Finds a graveyard Sherlock might like. One by one the days pass and the list of things that should be done gets shorter and shorter. 

He never cries. 

But he wants to, every damn day. He is slipping, _slipping_ , and this charade of formalities does not help at all. The death certificate gets thrown away the moment he exits the bureau. Those who care do not need it. Those who don’t... well, Mycroft can probably get a new copy. 

John cannot go to the service. He knows Mrs Hudson will, and probably Molly and Lestrade. Perhaps Mycroft. He even puts his best suit on and gets out of the flat. But the mere thought of sitting there solemnly, listening to someone prattle on about Sherlock... no. 

He is gloriously drunk by the time Mrs Hudson returns. Even this false oblivion does not last. The morning is no better. His head aches almost as much as his heart, which is not helpful enough. Nothing helps, nothing short of dying and he does not know why he hasn’t tried that. 

Maybe it is because he knows how those stupid or determined enough to still care about him would feel if he tried. He knows it so very well now.

He still cannot cry and the splinters of his broken heart continue to weigh him down.

*

“We should get a nice gravestone,” Mrs Hudson says one day. She comes up every now and then, bringing something to eat. It is probably very good. Tastes like ashes, still. “The earth should be settled by now.”

“Do you know Sherlock’s birth date?” John asks after a silence.

“Oh... I don’t. It should be on the certificate. Or on his ID.” Mrs Hudson is as stricken as he is to discover that neither of them knew something so mundane about Sherlock.

“I threw the certificate away.”

She does not want to search for his ID either. There are still too many ghosts in Sherlock’s rooms.

“Just his name, then.”

*

He forces himself to go to Sherlock’s room later that evening. The portraits are still on the walls. The Mendeleev table beside the window. A bedsheet thrown carelessly on the floor. It has not changed, really. This room was always bare and spartan. Now it is nothing more than another empty husk.

The thoughts come unbidden and unwanted. They have enough momentum to knock him from his feet and he kneels beside Sherlock’s bed.

Sherlock Holmes was not a fake. Sherlock, dear arrogant egocentric Sherlock would not kill himself just because people think he is a fraud. He jumped and tried to lie to him. They both knew how flimsy that lie was... and yet he tried. 

He finally understands _why_ and he does not want to.

He would have died for Sherlock. But Sherlock got ahead, like he did in everything else and John is left with nothing but ashes.

John curls up on the floor, on a sheet that stills smells like his best friend, and cries his heart out.


End file.
